


In The End, There's Nothing

by laceaesthetic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post Game, implied davekat - Freeform, johns depressed and needs help, warning for karkat BEING A GOOD FRIEND
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 10:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceaesthetic/pseuds/laceaesthetic
Summary: Your name is John Egbert, and you have never felt weaker. Everyone is enjoying their happy ending, and you have never felt more alone and more pathetic.





	In The End, There's Nothing

Your name is John Egbert, and though you are a god in your own right, you have never felt weaker.

You walk the halls of your empty childhood home, fingers grazing a scrapbook you can’t bear to open, like a ghost at the witching hour. You have been uprooted from not only your hometown but _your entire universe_ , with nothing but hollow halls to remind you of what you once were. Your father is gone, though his belongings sit, collecting dust, in his room, and all you can do is stare forlornly at the still full cake mixes that will never get used. You walk in a house meant for two people, alone, listening to your roaring footsteps in the otherwise too quiet home. You are alone, and you will be alone no matter how many guests you let in through the front door.

Your other friends, they have their guardians back in the form of happy-go-lucky teens and they talk _for hours_. They share stories of how they ended up being as adults, in some other dystopian universe, and they talk of how much they missed each other, of how they finally feel at home again. You only have Nanna frowning at you as she thinks of what she’d like to ask her ‘Poppop.’

That’s not to say you dislike Jane, in fact, you quite love her. She’s strong and passionate, and you find in her arms a maternal love you never had at home. But she’s not your dad. And, in some twisted turn of fate, she kept her own dad.

Jane says you’re welcome in her home anytime you’d like. She doesn’t say more than that, but you can feel her eyes focus on your eye bags and messy hair, as if staring hard enough will make it go away. You would if you could, but Jane’s house is just your house, with pictures of an old and gray version of you strewn on the walls, and so many small differences you feel restless and foreign in that house. Jane’s father smiles the same way yours did, but then he opens his mouth and calls you “dad” and you feel sick to your stomach. You feel like an intruder, there’s no space for you between the soul of Jane and Mr. Crocker stuffed full in every room.

They try to make you feel at home, they try to tell you of your accomplishments in their world, but _it all feels wrong._ You don’t want to admit you could be anything more than _Egbert’s boy next-door, across the road, down the lane,_ you don’t want to let go of your dad and the last you have of him.

You suppose it’s not just your dad that weighs on your soul. It’s also the fact that you look out your window and recognize nothing of the view. It’s the fact that you step into civilization and people _worship_ you. It’s the fact that you’ve plopped onto a new planet, a few thousand years into its society, and know nothing of the people and what they’ve been through.

You thought you could solve that easily. You got into collecting maps temporarily, poured over every map you could find of the planet as if you had a geography test the next day. It was going well, until you talked to Jade about the differences of this planet’s topography and Earth’s and realized you couldn’t remember the shape of Europe. Jade laughed it off, but you found yourself shaken at the thought of forgetting something so intrinsic to being from Earth. You never picked up a map again.

After a while, you got into history. You missed your friends’ uneasy stares as you told them about your recent purchase of multiple history textbooks. Surprisingly, you didn’t have a meltdown over your forgotten history knowledge. Rather, you threw yourself into this new world’s history for weeks without incident. Your friends relaxed, and let you go on grotesquely long tangents on this planet’s history. Dave had been listening to one such rant when he chimed in with a snarky, “so when do the Greeks come in?” You gave a half-hearted laugh and tried to go back to your spiel, but Dave didn’t take the hint. He shifted closer to you, his unshifting expression as somber as ever, and said, “No seriously, isn’t it crazy that the Greeks don’t exist here? It’s like fucking everything we’ve ever learned is worth shit here.” He gave a fraction of a smirk, waiting for your uproarious laughter and applause. You stared at him blankly for a while, before forcefully changing the topic. You never picked up a history book again.

You’ve never been one to care too much about familiarity, but you don’t understand how everyone is just _fine._ Everyone is having the time of their lives and you are left to swallow your misery and smile. You are left alone. Always alone.

Your friends stop coming by. They send you messages you never respond to. You close your bedroom windows and tear apart the posters on the wall and find the exercise so tiring that you sleep for the rest of the day. You no longer fly, it’s lost its novelty. Instead, you trudge around your house, content with jumping to reach the highest cabinet for the rest of your life.

A year passes by you, the sunlight hardly ever reaches you. You think nothing of anything until you hear a knocking at your door.

Your friends pile into your door, bringing in the light of day and the noise of laughter into your living room.

If any of them wonder about the dust on the sofas or the closed curtains, they say nothing of it.

You sheepishly tell them that you still haven’t taken down last year’s banner and Jade gives a bark of laughter.

“We know! We just changed the number on it! Me and Dave think it’s hilarious!”

The group joins in with Jade's laughter, and you give a shaky chuckle. Dave and Jade bring in a large cake in their arms, Rose carries candles and a lighter behind them. You push the thoughts of your dad aside.

“Don’t think of us as daft John, we know you hate cake. We brought it as a gag gift for you, a pleasantry for everyone else,” Rose drawls as she settles a candle down into the top layer.

“And it’s a tradition,” Jane beams from a corner of the room, as she digs her heel into the ground nervously, “I baked it myself!” _With help from my dad,_ isn’t said, but it’s implied in the falter of her voice, which gives her away as lying.

The party goes off splendidly to everyone but you. They laugh and sing and shove cake in each other’s faces. As the sun sets, people trickle out slowly and you catch Karkat speaking in hushed tones to a frowning Dave. Both Karkat’s quiet voice and Dave’s expression are worrisome, so you put on your goofiest grin and wait for one of them to approach you.

Dave leaves out the front door smoothly, hands in his pocket and shoulders hunched, he turns to you and flashes a peace sign, then continues his merry way. Karkat stays in the corner of the room, watching guests leave, until he’s the only one left, and he stares straight into your soul.

“Let me help you clean up,” he says softly, and already you feel like you are under a microscope.

“Oh, it’s fine Karkat! Besides, you’ll probably complain about how slow I clean within, like, five minutes!”

“That’s even _more_ of a reason to help you clean,” he replies, gaining some volume back.

You know this confrontation is inevitable, so you let him pick up plates with you. He’s frowning at you as he piles plates onto his arms. He dumps them into the sink and as the loud _clank_ brings your attention, he strikes.

“You know, I don’t know how all this god tier shit works, but you haven’t eaten since I got here, and it’s been _hours!_ Surely even a dumbass god needs to eat?”

You fidget and find yourself hovering over the ground as you try to search for some familiar feeling to hold onto.

“I didn’t really feel the need to eat. I have to, yeah, but I can survive without eating for longer than a normal human.”

“And it doesn’t feel uncomfortable?”

On cue, a pain in your stomach hits. _Of course, it does._ You don’t say your thoughts. He reads your silence as confirmation anyways. Karkat’s frown lightens and the tension shifts to his eyebrows, he mulls his next words carefully.

“If anything’s been bothering you, you know you can talk to me right?”

A flash of irritation strikes you, what could he know about what you’re going through? Your next words are meant to bite but come off as whiny instead.

“Are you and Dave happy?”

“I didn’t take you as a homewrecker, Egbert,” he replies sardonically. He tries to put some venom in his words, but it died long before he spoke. He chews on his lip before continuing, “We are, why are you asking?”

You give a huff of annoyance. “ _Everyone_ is happy. Everyone is _fine._ Everyone is just _fucking splendid_ with everything that’s happened and what is continuing to happen, and it feels like I’m the only one who’s just _a little freaked out_ by the fact that our home planet was destroyed, _our parents died,_ and now we’re living on another planet!”

Karkat isn’t shocked, he growls at you, “Of _course_ you’re freaked out Egbert! Everyone was fucking freaked out! But you know what we did instead of stewing about it for _a whole ass year?! We talked to someone about it! **Fuck** John, you could’ve found a fucking therapist if you wanted to!_”

Annoyance and irritation are long gone, you’re _furious_ now. “Oh really? Who could I talk to then? Everyone’s all coupled out and nobody wants to talk to _anyone_ but their boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend, and as it turns out, I don’t fall under those categories for anyone here! I’m the ugly spare or _whatever_ the analogy is and _I’m alone!”_ You’re almost at the point of tears, you have half the idea to kick Karkat out so he won’t see you start to bawl.

“You’re so fucking dense, you stupid doorknob! What the hell do you think I’m doing now! _I’m talking to you, so you get your head out of your ass and start looking at the world around you!_ ”

Your rage crescendos. “Yeah! But newsflash asshole, _it took you a year to talk to me!_ It took you a whole year to care about me!”

“I _know!_ Trust me, I know! And I’m sorry, but I’m here now and I swear to you, since you’re a fucking god around here, that I’m going to help you, but I can’t do _shit_ if you don’t let me help you!”

You’re crying now, the fire in you has been doused. “I just want to feel _fine,_ like everyone else.” You stop hovering and slump to the ground. Karkat walks over to the heap that you call your body and hesitantly wraps his arms around you.

“I know, maybe you can start with opening a curtain or two, you’re living like we’re back on Alternia and any sun will roast you to ashes.”

You laugh at that, and a sudden thought strikes you. “Karkat isn’t this like… pale flirting? Are you and Dave in a single quadrant or like going the human way?”

He stiffens and disentangles himself from you. “How do you even remember anything about the quadrants? I know you weren’t paying attention the first time I ranted about it.”

You laugh, “It was in like all of my history books dude, or are you forgetting the fact that this planet is half troll?”

He grumbles before replying, “No, this is _not_ pale flirting, you stupid paleslut.”

You laugh and take some time to collect yourself. “Thank you for actually talking to me Karkat, I appreciate it.”

“Damn right you do,” he softens, “I’ll come back tomorrow okay?”

“Yeah that’s fine, I don’t have much else to do.”

He smiles and lifts the both of you up from the floor. Karkat gives you a little wave and shows himself out.

Your name is John Egbert. You are alone again. Though you feel just a smidge less grave than you did yesterday. You walk to your room and graze a scrapbook you haven’t had the courage to open. You won’t today, but you find yourself a step closer to opening it.

Your name is John Egbert. You will get through this.

Your name is John Egbert. You are exhausted. You find yourself laying on your bed, a deep feeling of numbness once again washing over you.

Your name is John Egbert.

**Author's Note:**

> follow my hs twitter  
> @tactlessanalyze


End file.
